Cara Freeman

Cara Freeman

Jessica Cohen-Ross and Cara Freeman have been educating together on LGBTQ+ topics for over 2 years. Together, they have developed an effective, meaningful, creative approach to Cultural Humility and supporting LGBTQ+ community health. Together, they have 15 years of experience in the field of LGBTQ+ community support. Jessica, a former GLSEN board member, worked as the Youth Services Director at the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley for 5 years, before joining Trillium Health in 2013. Cara joined Trillium Health after graduating from Nazareth College of Rochester in 2014, and began building the first LGBTQ+ Care Coordination program in upstate New York before transitioning to the LGBTQ+ health outreach & education team.

As a part of the LGBTQ+ Health Program, Jess and Cara provide free cultural humility education to Health & Human Services (HHS) agencies in the Finger Lakes Region. They created a new approach to cultural humility with their Open Space Workshop, a 4-6 hour intersectional, evidence-based educational program. The workshop addresses personal identities and values to help professionals build meaningful connections to supporting LGBTQ+ Health. The approach of “meeting people were they’re at,” suggested to workshop participants is also applied to participants to foster meaningful learning and growth.

Objectives:1. Participants will increase knowledge and skills for affirming LGBTQ+ community members.
2. Participants will build connections between their personal identities and LGBTQ+ identities.
3. Participants will be able to identify common slurs and microaggressions to avoid when working with LGBTQ+ communities.